Tumbloween: Even blogs need Halloween costumes

Come October 30th, you may not recognize anyone on your Tumblr dashboard.

Halloween is the one day of the year that you can drop your persona and assume another one entirely. Now, you can bring that day of escapism to your Tumblr blog, too.

Tumbloween is a quickly-spreading meme that urges bloggers to literally disguise their blogs for Halloween, starting on Tuesday, Oct. 30. The explanatory image has 10,000 notes and counting:

“Get creative! RP [Role Play] someone insane like Hitler or a grandma who isn’t very good at technology. Maybe develop a strong, sudden passion for something mundane and become a fuckyeahsalad blog. See your dash become a sudden land of what the fuckery.”

The meme works especially well on Tumblr. Users are able to change their identifying portrait photo and even their blog URL for any reason. These are the only two ways that followers can determine who is showing up on their Tumblr Dashboard.

Combine a completely new blog address and image with a brand new content style, and the only way users can discover your identity is to browse the archives for more familiar content.

The masquerade is the brainchild of Rex, the 21-year-old blogger behind Tumblr Colfersaurus Rex. The user best known for a viral story about losing her virginity (52,000 notes and counting) told the Daily Dot she came up with Tumbloween after thinking about how easily Tumblr’s platform lends itself to users’ reinvention.

“Really it started out with me thinking that I identify the people I follow by their urls and icons and when they change it, I have no idea who they are unless I go and check their blog,” she said. “So I thought, how hilarious would it be if everyone did it at the same time and your dash became something completely different than what you're used to? And then bingo. Tumbloween was born.”

An art student in Tennessee who keeps her real name a secret on Tumblr, Rex said she’d be delighted if Tumbloween became an annual thing. But for now, she’s just planning her first blog costume, which is a “surprise.”

“My favorite aspect of Tumbloween is the amount of confusion it's going to cause. My goal is for people to log on and think, ‘WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?’ I'm determined to hide my true identity the whole day to keep people guessing.”

For Rex, who has even assumed a new name separate from her real one just for her online identity, Tumbloween is more like a second reinvention. Her Tumblr is an opportunity for her to step out of her real life persona, but the meme is a chance to step out of her established online identity.

“A lot of people on Tumblr consider the website a home of sorts, and have grown to love the people they follow and see on their dash. I think it'd be so entertaining if we all agreed to be someone completely different online, especially if you get to share it with the friends and followers you've made.”

There are a few ways to become Internet famous: unknowingly become the target of a meme, inventing a new style of horseback dancing, or developing a Tumblr blog that catapults you into a tidal wave of reblogs, notoriety, and press mentions.